Zèle
by LesMisLoony
Summary: Montparnasse and Azelma in a field.


"Hey."

I tear my eyes away from the ground and squint up over my shoulder into the midday sun. It's Azelma. I turn away. "Hey yourself."

She heaves a sigh and plops into the grass beside me. "Haven't seen you in a while."

I don't answer, but study her from the corner of my eye. She looks thinner. She sits with her bony arms wrapped around her shins, the edge of a scraped knee protruding through a hole in her skirt. Her hair is a lighter than I remembered, frazzled and faded by the sun. She is all angles and freckles and stains.

"You okay?"

I look back at the ground. Just beyond my feet, a sluggish brook runs brown with filth from a nearby tannery. "Are you?"

After a moment of silence, I see her shake her head.

When she doesn't say anything else, the silence gets heavy. "And your dad?"

She shakes her head again.

I push myself over to her, hoping that the grass won't stain my tan trousers. She drops her head comfortably against my shoulder, and I loop my arm around her. Despite the relentless sun, she is shaking.

"Tell me there's a heaven," she mumbles, her voice so low it is almost lost in the rustle of the wind in the grass.

"I don't know, Zèle."

"Then at least tell me there isn't a hell."

I don't say anything, but pull her tighter against me. Her rough curls scratch against my jaw. She smells like dust and her father's pipe, the same smell as their awful little attic apartment.

"Will I ever feel better?" she asks.

"I don't know."

We are quiet for a while. I am lost in the silent movement of the sludge-filled brook.

"You can always find another lover," she says suddenly. "How am I supposed to replace family?"

"We'll take care of you," I say, unsure if it's true. "At least, I'll look out for you. And for your dad."

"You would have been a good brother," she whispers. "The two of you would have stuck it out like Mom and Dad. Even when she came home furious with you, you always figured it out the next day."

She releases her grip on her knees and works her arms around my waist until she is clinging to me with her head buried in my chest. I pretend not to see the bruises around one of her wrists. "I would have taken both of you to my place," I tell her. "All of you. You'd have been safe with me."

She doesn't move but for the rise and fall of her back. I put a hand on her hair, thinking to stroke it and soothe her, but my fingers are immediately ensnared in the dirty tangles.

"Do you want to come live with me?" I ask suddenly. "Now? Just stay with me. Don't go back to him. I'll keep you safe."

The question hangs in the air for a long time. Just when I am wondering whether she has heard me, she pulls free of my arms and clambers to her feet. She stands before me for a while with her fists on her hips, studying my expression until her distrust fades. "I wish you could have been my brother," she says again. Now her shoulders are slumped in defeat. We are both defeated.

I stand too, surprised to find that I have been in this park for so long that my feet have gone numb. "I want to be," I insist, but I don't know if I will still feel this way tomorrow.

She squints at me, sucking her cheeks in and tilting her head. Her mass of curly hair bobs gently when she moves. I find myself wondering if I could find her a real dress instead of the petticoat tied over a dirty shift she is wearing now. I even wonder where I could find her work, and whether she would make a good seamstress. I imagine myself giving her one of my mattresses and hanging a curtain across my room to give her privacy. Suddenly I want to help her work a comb through that hair and wash the dust of the city from her skin until a workingman finds her pretty and asks me for her hand. She isn't a criminal like her father—like me. She has a chance. She could save the Jondrette name. She could bear someone honest children and live without fear of the march of soldiers' boots in the street or the sight of a policeman posted on a corner. "I want to be your brother," I repeat, taking a hasty step toward her. I see a future again for the first time in a long time. I reach for her hand, almost smiling as the scenarios continue to fill my mind, but it all falls apart when Azelma pulls away.

"I'm going to America," she tells me, and after taking two quick steps back she whirls around and, that pitiful petticoat bunched in her fists, runs away.

I stay where I am until she clears the field and turns down an alley, disappearing from my sight. After a long pause, I drop back to my seat on the dirty riverbank. A cloud drifts over the sun.


End file.
